Speed-Dating Study: Selectivity Matters

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Speed-Dating Study: Selectivity Matters

Now here's a study that didn't require undergrads to torture each other or take annoying tests. They just had to endure a round of speed-dating with the opposite sex so researchers could figure out if it's good to be selective during dating.

The answer: Yes. If you like everybody and show it, you'll lose at the game of love:

The more you tend to experience romantic desire for all the potentialromantic partners you meet, the study shows, the less likely it is thatthey will desire you in return...

In contrast, when you desire a potentialpartner above and beyond your other options, only then is your desirelikely to be reciprocated.

So basically, it's not good to be desperate when you're dating. (Who knew?)

"Potential partners who seem undiscriminating are a definite turnoff,and those who evoke the magic of feeling special are a big draw," saidPaul W. Eastwick, the lead author of the study and a Northwesterngraduate student in psychology. "The wild part is that our speed-daterswere negotiating all of these subtleties with only four minutes foreach date."